The AR World Championships - Costa Rica
Your Future Starts Now!
Adam Rose / 06.12.2013
The race is now unfolding in a fairly predictable fashion after Crazy Swamp. The top teams are in the top position. The other teams are in the other positions. There is a long gap between the two. Surprised?
Well, there are a couple of potential upsets awaiting. They revolve around dark zones and cut off times. This is where a little too little enthusiasm could split the field hugely.
These are the expected stage times up to TA9/CP41, the end of the rafting:
Trek: 35 to 65hrs
Bike: 3.5 to 6hrs
raft: 4 to 5hrs
Below are the departure times for some of the top teams as they left TA5, based on recorded tracking signal:
Thule: 11:35
Seagate: 12:23
Tecnu 14:52
Columbia 15:30
Adidas 19:13
Bones: 20:00
Merrell 22:06
Based on the shortest possible trek (35hrs) and shortest bike ride to the rafting (3.5hrs), plus throw in 30 mins for each transition, and you can see what the best possible times are to avoid the dark zone at 14:00 at TA8, and actual rafting must begin by 15:00 latest. That hour gap accounts for the short trek from the transition down to the river itself. The no-paddle time itself lasts 10.5hrs.
You can access the file fullscreen here: LINK
If you add the time taken for the rafting itself, of between 4 to 5hrs, a team that completes that stage before dark could conceivably be 19 hrs ahead of a team that arrives at rafting at 14:01. Harsh.
Furthermore, any team that fails to reach the rafting by 14:00 on Dec 9th will be shuttled forward to complete the final 2 stages of the race. They will therefore be unranked.
Based purely on their start times Thule and Seagate should be caught by the Dark zone, arriving shortly before it lifts, which would mean they would restart together and the chasing teams would catch up some time. Then the top 10 teams would get through before the Dark Zone hit again the following evening.
However, that is assuming everyone goes at the fastest predicted pace ... and that won't happen of course!
(PS: the figures should be right. Feel free to contact me at fuddam@gmail.com or @fuddam if they aren't - these past few days have left me in a bit of a fuzz. I'm going to lie down now.)
SleepMonsters
